中国富人的社交网站A social network for socialist China’s lonely super-wealthy

Listening to what is coming from China’s official media these days, you could believe this was a socialist country. Every other day, web pages at Xinhua, the official news agency, are bathed in red promoting a special on the ruling Communist party’s upcoming 90th anniversary.

这些天来，如果仅凭中国官方媒体的报道，你可能会认为这是一个社会主义国家。每隔一两天，中国官方通讯社新华社的网页就会浸染在一片红色之中，为中国共产党即将来临的90周年纪念日的专题报道做宣传。

But one recent success among the booming social media, which are all privately owned, speaks a completely different language: P1.CN, an invitation-only social network for urban affluent Chinese, has attracted 1.2m members. And its success seems to lie in a concept that reflects a class society.

然而，在蓬勃兴起的社交媒体——它们均为私人所有——当中，近来有一个成功的案例，却讲述着全然不同的故事：P1.CN 是一家面向中国城市富裕阶层、仅接受邀请入会的社交网站，已经吸引了120万名会员。该网站的成功似乎源自一个反映着“阶级社会”的理念。

As a message to unfortunate non-members on the site’s homepage makes clear, P1.CN is out to make a virtue of exclusivity: 'P1.CN is a private, invitation only social network for exceptional individuals. Therefore we pay special attention to the few people that receive the opportunity to join our network. Finding 5 of your friends on P1 will grant you access to our community.'

在网站首页上，为运气不好无法成为会员的用户提供的一则消息里，P1.CN 表明其目的在于将排他性作为一种美德：“P1.CN是为社会精英服务的私人网络社区，目前只接受邀请入会的方式。因此，对于收到邀请函的少数人群，我们将 给予高度关注。 只需在P1上找到5位您的好友，即可获得加入社区的机会。”

The service found its first clientele by doing profiling in shopping malls – for that reason, it initially had a large overhang of female members. Members can network but also get special offers for top-end nightclubs and luxury brand shops.

此项服务最初的客户群是通过从购物中心进行抽样而建立的，因此，最初 P1.CN的女性会员数量远多于男性。会员可以相互结识，也可以获得高端夜店和奢侈品牌商店提供的特惠。

Prospective members must have a monthly income of at least Rmb8,000 – according to luxury market researchers, the threshold for an upper middle class lifestyle. But above ordinary membership, there are silver, gold and platinum memberships. Platinum members are “basically the super-wealthy,” says Wang Yu, the company’s chief executive.

潜在用户的月收入至少要达到8000元人民币，奢侈品市场研究人员称，这是上层中产阶级生活方式的门槛。不过在普通会员之上，还有银牌、金牌和铂金会员。这家公司的CEO王宇表示，铂金用户“基本上都是超级富豪”。

And while, in other countries, the higher levels of exclusivity might come with age, P1.CN indicates it’s the other way round in China. “Gold members tend to be older than Platinum members because the latter often belong to the ‘rich second generation’,” says Wang.

而且，虽然在其他国家，程度较高的排他性往往与年龄相关，但P1.CN表明，中国的情况与此相反。王宇说：“金牌会员往往比铂金会员年龄更大，因为后者经常属于‘富二代’。”

According to him, China’s rich kids are reluctant to engage socially with people outside their own class, and are desperate to find others with similar wealth levels. “The higher up you go, the more active they are [on P1.CN],” he says. “The top members use it on a daily basis because for these people, it is really hard to find others of their kind.”

他表示，中国富裕的孩子们不愿意与自己阶层之外的人交往，而且迫切地想找到其他处在类似财富水平的人。他说：“层次越高，（在P1.CN上）就越活跃。顶级用户每天都会使用，因为对这些人来说，要想找到同类真的很难。”